


Cat-Appropriate Names

by barricadesarise (rmnff)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I never take my fics seriously I swear all I ever write is random crackfics, WARNING for the vaguest mention of violence, and some explicit language, jehan and grantaire are roommates is anyone surprised, modern day AU, so cliché it hurts really, stray kittens causing confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rmnff/pseuds/barricadesarise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one is for Bambi bc I asked her for a prompt and all she said was "R WITH A CAT" so... I had to go with it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Cat-Appropriate Names

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for Bambi bc I asked her for a prompt and all she said was "R WITH A CAT" so... I had to go with it.

Grantaire wakes up because there’s something soft and incredibly gentle touching his face. It starts on his forehead and then traces the side of his face, his cheek, the sharp line of his jaw. It’s only when it lightly bats against his closed eyelid that he stirs, then sneezes, and then opens his eyes.

There’s a brief moment in which Grantaire thinks he might’ve gone blind because he can’t see a thing with his right eye. Then he realizes there’s a dark ball of fluff blocking his vision and moves carefully to sit up. 

On the pillow, right next to where his face had been, sits the World’s Tiniest Cat – a dark gray kitten, not more than a few weeks old, its large green eyes fixed on Grantaire expectantly. Its tail is still moving rhythmically and he concludes that’s where the gentle touch that woke him up had come from. 

Where the cat itself has come from, however, is a completely different question – the flat’s on the fifth floor, his room’s windows are never open, there’s practically no way in hell for any living creature to end up in his bed unless that living creature is a human male he’s picked up at a bar the night before. Since that’s really, _really_ not the case, the cat’s appearance is a complete mystery. Unless—

“ _Jean Prouvaire_!” 

He can hear his roommate Jehan giggle in the living room. Using his full name almost absolutely means he’s in a ridiculous amount of trouble. The kitten on Grantaire’s bed looks harmless, but Jehan’s in trouble for bringing it home anyway, so Grantaire groans and gets out of bed, not even bothering with a t-shirt or sweatpants as he picks the cat up and cradles it to his chest, padding out into the living room.

“Good morning!” Jehan says cheerfully, practically beaming at him as he looks up, and then his smile gets even wider as his eyes move to the cat. “Morning sunshine!”

“You can _take_ your sunshine now, what is it doing in my bed?” Grantaire grumbles, frowning in an attempt to look as intimidating as possible for a man in dark green boxers and bed hair cuddling a kitten against his bare chest.

“Oh—oh no, no,” Jehan laughs, shaking his head. “No, honey, the cat’s not mine. And it’s a boy, by the way.”

“What do you mean—“

“ _You_ brought him in last night,” Jehan shakes his head but he shoots Grantaire an affectionate smile, as if drunkenly bringing random cats to their flat is some sort of admirable, lovely personality trait.

Grantaire can’t argue with that. His last vague memory of the night is leaving the Corinthe, and there’s just enough of a dull headache in his temples to confirm the sneaking suspicion that he might’ve drank just a bit too much vodka. Not like, a horrible amount – seeing as he made it home and he can’t remember punching anyone – but enough to not remember a thing.

Also, of course, there’s the cat.

“Why did I—“ Grantaire starts. Then the moves in his arms and meows a little, and it sounds kind of sad so Grantaire can’t help giving it a concerned look.

“Come on, let’s make him breakfast!” Jehan commands, jumping off the couch simultaneously, and then ushers Grantaire towards the kitchen.

 

Making cat breakfast, it turns out, consists of finding a small bowl it can drink from and filling it with (the very last of their) milk. Jehan takes care of all of that while Grantaire makes coffee and then grimly announces that they’re out of cereal. Which, really, is okay, seeing as they’re practically out of milk as well.

“So do you have any idea why I decided to kidnap a cat, or—“

Jehan’s positioned himself on the floor and he’s sitting Indian style next to the cat, his yellow coffee mug placed between his crossed legs. He looks up at Grantaire and gives him another one of those fond smiles, like Grantaire’s actually some sort of weird cat saint.

“You came home last night, without the cat,” Jehan starts, then pauses to run a single fingertip down the kitten’s back. It looks up from the bowl of milk and meows again, this time a lot more content than before. 

Grantaire finds himself thinking that it’s incredible that a cat can actually communicate its emotions through meowing. Then he wonders if he’s still drunk because he’s never really been an animal person, certainly not a _cat_ person, and absolutely certainly not a person who gets emotional thinking about emotive kittens before he’s even finished his first coffee of the day.

“Then you heard him outside, I think,” Jehan adds thoughtfully. “You said he sounded sad so you went out and you took him home. It was _really_ cold last night, though, it’s probably good that you made sure he’s safe—“ 

He trails off and smiles, and Grantaire is absolutely convinced now that his roommate actually finds his random acts of kindness towards cats incredibly endearing. 

“Well, it’s stupid,” Grantaire says finally, and he sounds a lot more determined than he intended. “I don’t even—shit, Jehan, I don’t even _remember_ doing that but look at that thing, it’s tiny, it wouldn’t’ve lasted outside last night—“

He frowns and suddenly feels really, really angry at whoever left the tiny creature on the street at night in the middle of winter. Jehan just shoots him another Actual-Cat-Saint smile and keeps playing with the kitten on the kitchen floor as he finishes his coffee. 

 

“We can’t keep him,” Jehan says a while later, after they’ve migrated back to the living room and Grantaire’s sneezed about ten times over the span of half an hour. 

“We’re not just gonna let it back out on the street,” he argues, sniffling a bit at the same time. 

“R, you’re—“

“Tiny bit allergic, I know, I don’t care.”

The kitten’s now curled up on Grantaire’s lap and he has a box of tissues within arm’s reach but he looks perfectly content anyway, as if all he’s ever needed in his life is to watch TV with his roommate and a cat. Which is, practically, as non-Grantaire as things can possibly get, but for some reason it’s nice and he’s decided not to fight it at all.

“We should make some flyers,” Jehan observes noncommittally. “Maybe someone lost him—maybe they’re looking for him—maybe they’re _really sad,_ ” he adds, though it’s obvious he wouldn’t mind if Grantaire just decided to keep it.

Hell, Grantaire suspects he probably has a list of cat-appropriate names in mind already. 

“Fine,” he says anyway. “I’m gonna make flyers just in case, okay? And if no one calls, we’ll keep him?”

It seems like a reasonable consensus, even though Grantaire sneezes at least three more times while they discuss flyers and then – as anticipated – cat names.

 

Grantaire spends the next couple of hours drawing a portrait of the kitten for the flyers, and then goes out to get that photocopied and posted around the neighborhood. 

Later, Jehan agrees to go out because they still really need milk, and cereal, and also dinner. As soon as he’s out of the building, he spots one of Grantaire’s flyers on one of the trees lining the sidewalk. Grantaire hadn’t allowed him to actually _look_ at the flyers, so he walks over to read it. The text is rude, ridiculous, and no one but Grantaire is capable of producing anything like that. The photocopied portrait of the kitten is scarily realistic and below it, in Grantaire’s messy handwriting, the flyer reads:

_To whoever left this kitten outside in the cold last night: you dick. He could’ve died. We don’t care abt any your reward or whatever. We’re keeping him. Fuck you_

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe one day I'll stop being extremely intimidated by the amazing writers in this fandom and actually post something with actual PLOT and not just cat-related ridiculousness. 
> 
> Comments of any kind would be incredibly appreciated, as always! :')


End file.
